According to an interview he gave last Friday, American talk show star Jay Leno underwent surgery last Tuesday to heal many broken bones sustained in a motorbike accident in early January.
The formerly-host of the Tonight Show, who was also well-known for his obsession with automobiles, appeared to be in a good mood.
“An 83-year-old motorcycle is being driven by a 72-year-old man. What could possibly fail? He joked.
Two months after sustaining burns while working on cars in his garage, Leno claims his most recent accident occurred on January 17 while he was test riding a 1940 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle with a sidecar and smelled gas coming from the vehicle.
In order to check the motorcycle, he turned down a side street, but after passing over a wire he couldn’t see, he was knocked off the motorcycle. He underwent surgery to fix a cracked clavicle, two broken ribs, two broken kneecaps, and a scar across his neck as a result of the accident.
Even if it’s unpleasant, he insisted that nothing was lost. I’m lucky to be only 72. This may have been quite serious if I were an older man.
The comedian claimed during the interview that he was in fine physical shape despite the wounds and that he would be well enough to work over the weekend.
He still intends to do his sold-out Sunday night gig at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California. In the upcoming weeks, he also has performances booked for Arizona and Ohio.
Last Thursday, he revealed the news of the motorbike accident for the first time in an interview with a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The columnist, Mr. John Katsilometes, had inquired about his recuperation after suffering severe burns in a gasoline fire at his Burbank, California, garage in late 2022.
Leno retorted, “That was the first accident.
He claimed in the interview with the Review-Journal that he had been reluctant to discuss the motorcycle accident in public due to the considerable media attention surrounding his earlier accident just a few months earlier.
He underwent surgery in November after getting “severe burns” to his face, chest, and hands while working on one of his automobiles, according to the medical community. Leno stated in a statement following the fire that he would “only need a week or two” to recover.
In reference to the collisions last Friday, he made a joke: “I try to crash within five or six miles of my garage every single time so I can get stuff back.”
The comedian and auto enthusiast’s accident also coincides with CNBC’s decision not to renew his program, Jay Leno’s Garage, which since 2015 has featured both celebrity interviews and his enormous automobile collection.
According to Leno, the change was a part of a bigger restructuring of CNBC’s programming. Requests for comment from network representatives went unanswered.
“I would like to keep working with NBC. So there isn’t any ill will or bad blood, right? I wish them luck in everything there, he continued. While we were there, we enjoyed ourselves.
Leno, a fixture of NBC’s television programming for three decades, said he was exploring for a new home for the program, maybe on a streaming service, which he said “seems to be the wave of the future.”
